Top 10 Film Creatures Used as Transportation

Trains, planes, automobiles, horses and the occasional camel or elephant are the typical modes of transportation for the heroes and heroines of most Hollywood Blockbuster movies. But in the last few years as fantasy and sci-fi have become more widely embraced, the modes of transportation for characters have changed dramatically.

Especially in the last few months, I’ve found myself in the movie theaters turning to the person next to me and jealously exclaiming – I want to ride “insert awesome creature here.” Here are my top 10 personal favorite creatures used as transportation in film.

10. TaunTaun – a kangaroo, llama like creature from Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. Native to the ice cold planet Hoth. They may smell bad, but they’ll keep you warm and cozy when you use their guts for a sleeping bag. And while you may not be able to ride one in real life, you can actually buy a TaunTaun sleeping bag, and be the envy of your friends at all the nerd parties.

9. The Great Eagles – the second coolest creatures in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. They appear a few different times – once to rescue Gandalf from the Orthanc Tower in Isengaard and next to rally during the climactic battle for Middle Earth, fighting off the Nazgul. They also fly into Mordor to pick up the fatigued Frodo and Sam as Mt. Doom explodes all around them.

8. lorek Byrnison – the talking polar “ice” bear from The Golden Compass movie. He acts as a guardian and protector of the main character Lyra, but also his own back-story, which yields some wicked cool bear-on-bear fight action. As opposed to bear-on-man action, which is what would happen if you attempted to ride a bear in real life.

7. Buckbeak the Hippogriff – appears in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The creature itself is a bit of a bitch to manage, but if the end result is a fun flight around Hogwarts, and a rescue later on in the film, than HP is willing to risk it. Buckbeak also has a warm spot in my heart as he was nearly the victim of a beheading.

6. Fell Beast – evil dragon creatures from the Lord of the Rings that are controlled by the Nazguls.  They look bad-ass with their giant wing-span and have a cool scream to inspire fear in the hearts of weaker men. Unfortunately, that seems to be their favorite snack, so they would probably make you the neighborhood pariah when folks started going missing.

Costumes in Real Life: Heroes and Villains

It seems odd that twice this morning I should be reminded of the impact costumed heroes and villains have on our lives. Not in a metaphorical way, but in real blood and guts instances. Yes, actual people dressing up as comic book characters. But in these cases, some are heroes and some are villians.

The first example is not so cheery: Soldier dressed as the Joker killed in standoff. Apparently this is not the first instance since The Dark Knight was released in theatres last year in which people have sought to portray this character for their own malicious purposes. One was a young girl attacking a teacher while wearing Joker make-up. Another is a young man dressed as the Joker trying to beat up a former girlfriend’s current boyfriend. These were all located for me at this blog, and I’ve been unable to find anymore examples of comic book villians high-jacked for violent real life intentions in my own brief internet searching. But I would be interested to know if this dressing as a villian and committing real world crime is a recent phenomenon due to the increase in popularity of comic book movies, or if this has been happening since the early days of Superman.

On a much lighter and heart-warming note: A firefighter dressed as Spiderman rescued a child in Bangkok. And in a whole other part of the world, two years ago – a young boy dressed as Spiderman rescued a one year old girl from a burning building. And a pizza delivery man dressed as Luke Piewalker came to the aid of a mugging victim in 2006.

Is this the result of comic books becoming mainstream? Of the increasingly ravenous popularity of superhero movies? Real people dressing as heroes and villians performing feats of rescue and plots of crime, not just in the United States, but across the globe..

If the result of ordinary folks dressing like superheroes and saving the lives of others, is that we have ordinary folks dressing like villians and killing or hurting others…is that a welcome trade off? Do we cease a successful element of pop culture because it encourages imitation in positive and negative ways? And how intriguing is it that we are asking this question – the same question posed by books like Watchmen and Marvels. Do superheroes create supervillians? Or are heroes a response to villians existing in the first place. Hhhmm.

What would Alan Moore think about these examples? What would Stan Lee have to say?

How about you?

Much Love, Mindy C